Press Release from Love 30, the Campaign for Lower Speed Limits

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Issued 6 April 2021

CALL FOR DEFAULT 30 km/h IN ALL URBAN AREAS

(A default limit does not prevent a different limit being introduced)

Maynooth Cycling Campaign joins Love 30, The Campaign for Lower Speed Limits, in calling  on the Oireachtas to provide for a default urban speed limit of 30 km/h in the forthcoming Road Traffic (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.

Ireland was a signatory in February 2020 of the Stockholm Declaration of the Third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, which was subsequently endorsed by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Paragraph 11 committed to:

“mandate a maximum road travel speed of 30 km/h in areas where vulnerable road users and vehicles mix in a frequent and planned manner, except where strong evidence exists that higher speeds are safe, noting that efforts to reduce speed in general will have a beneficial impact on air quality and climate change as well as being vital to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries;”

Love 30 calls on the Minister for Transport, Eamon Ryan, and on the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Hildegarde Naughton, to fulfil the commitment in the Stockholm Declaration by including provision for a default speed limit of 30 km/h in built-up areas.

 It will then be for councils to decide which roads should have a different speed limit. A default limit does not prevent a higher limit being introduced where it is deemed necessary and safe, but the ultimate benefit of a low speed limit would be a cleaner environment and improved safety for people walking  and cycling while also protecting our right to health and wellbeing.   30 km/h speed limits have long been recognised for the safety benefits they offer and in addition can assist in reducing noise and emissions and can help to make our towns and cities more pleasant places to live, work and play.

Many cities including London (20 mph), Brussels, Milan, Santander, Bilbao, Paris, Washington DC (20 mph), Boulder (Colorado, 20 mph), Wellington, have introduced widespread 30 km/h limits. Several countries are introducing default 30 km/h speed limits in all urban areas including Netherlands, Spain, and Wales (20 mph). Some locations have speed limits as low as 10 km/h. Love 30 believes that Ireland should follow this best international practice and legislate for a default 30 km/h limit in built-up areas.

Joan Swift of Love 30 Sligo said:  “Ireland needs to move quickly to implement the Stockholm Declaration and introduce default 30 km/h speed limits in all built-up areas. We have fallen behind our UK and EU neighbours where 30 km/h is increasingly becoming the norm in town centres and in residential areas. The Welsh Parliament has voted for a 20-mph default urban speed limit and more than a hundred French cities have introduced default 30 km/h limits.”

Mairéad Forsythe of Love 30 Dublin said: “We need 30 km/h speed limits on our residential roads, outside our schools and in the centres of our cities, towns, and villages so that people can move about more safely and enjoy a more people-friendly space. This is more important than ever during COVID-19 restrictions when there has been a surge in the number of people moving about outdoors on foot and by bicycle”

END

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  1. Who are we? Love 30 is an alliance of organisations and individuals who support the concept of lower speed limits in urban areas. We are campaigning for the introduction of more 30 km/h zones in urban areas, but particularly in town centres, residential areas, and near schools and other places of public assembly. You can find more information at www.love30.ie or contact us at info@love30.ie .

Kildare Co Co’s Transportation Dept (finally) reacts to Covid-19 Emergency

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Maynooth has finally seen Kildare County Council’s Transportation Department react to the Covid-19 health emergency with works on the Dublin Road, Mill Street and Laurence’s Avenue

Although the Dublin Road work s limited, Maynooth Cycling Campaign welcomes the pop-up cycle lane which has appeared on part of one side of the road. While it will not attract many more cyclists, it will give more space to pedestrians and reduce the risk of a collision between cyclists and motorised vehicles – at least when they are travelling towards Carton Park Shopping Centre.

Bollards have also appeared on Mill Street to form a pop-up footpath at the Rye Bridge on Mill Street on space which had formerly been allocated for cycling. Several cyclists thought that it was a pop-up cycle lane. They were astonished to learn that the space was to be reallocated from cyclists to pedestrians and that cyclists were expected to move out to the traffic lane and “share the road” with cars. Most other councils are improving conditions for pedestrians AND cyclists, rather than pedestrians OR cyclists. Legibility is an important aspect of road safety. Legibility means that road users can “read” where they are supposed to go – be they pedestrians, cyclists or drivers. While he changes was intended to benefit pedestrians, it is doubtful that many cyclists will swing out into the traffic lane.

When the work was announced as part of the July Stimulus, a requirement was for the work to be completed before the end of November but was only carried out in February.  Thankfully Kildare’s Fire Service is more responsive to an emergency than the Transportation Dept.

The third edition of the Sustainable Safety vision

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Cyclist fatalities in Ireland have been increasing over the last ten years. In the Netherlands, increased cycling led to a reduction in fatalities due to their high quality infrastructure and Sustainable Safety policies.

Bicycle Dutch's avatarBICYCLE DUTCH

Sustainable Safety is one of the corner stones of the Dutch road safety policies. Its ultimate goal is to make traffic so safe that everybody can get home safely. Not only fit able-bodied people or drivers in protected vehicles, but every road user – the schoolchild, the commuter, the commercial driver and the active senior, whether they walk, cycle or participate in traffic in any other way. I’ve published about Sustainable Safety before, in 2012 and in 2017, but the policy was updated in 2018. That is why I want to start this year with another look at Sustainable Safety. First, I would like to wish you all the very best for this new year! I also – as you will have noticed – updated the look of my blog.

The three editions of the Dutch Sustainable Safety policies from the 1990s, 2005/2006 and 2018 respectively.

The Dutch Institute…

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Another Year, Another Increase in Cyclist Fatalities

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Another year over and another year with a continuing upward trend in cyclist fatalities.

With a 3% level of cycling in Ireland, it is expected that the number of cyclists fatalities would be statistically insignificant from year to year ie it would follow a random pattern with fatalities increasing some years and decreasing other years. The number of fatalities (solid line above) confirms this pattern.

The  trend line (dotted) looks at longer term patterns and show a continuing increase in cyclist fatalities. Admittedly, using a different baseline, say 1990, would show a different picture but the graph above uses a baseline of 2010 as that is the year with the minimum number of cyclist fatalities and minimum level of cycling as measured by the 2011 National Census.

From the 1970s when the Netherlands prioritised cycling and began to provide high quality infrastructure, cyclist fatalities dropped despite increased cycling. Irish local authorities have still to recognise the link between high quality infrastructure and the safety of cyclists. Despite increased cycling during the pandemic, the removal of “emergency” cycle infrastructure and opposition to reallocation of road space shows that we have quite a way to go.

Selective concern

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The concerns of drivers in Horsham are similar to the concern of drivers in Maynooth. The reaction of politicians to the concerns are similar too.

In the time that they have developed six vaccines, Horsham Council has at least provided emergency pop-up cycle lanes, albeit on a temporary basis, whereas Maynooth is still waiting for its emergency cycle lanes.

aseasyasriding's avatarAs Easy As Riding A Bike

Between the end of September and the end of November this year, Horsham briefly had a pop-up cycle lane, created in the space of less than a day by the addition of some bolt-down plastic wands and painted markings, converting one lane of our four/five lane wide inner ring road into a cycle lane.

The Albion Way pop-up lane. Note that, thanks to a watering down of the original scheme, it only went in one direction, and was therefore unlikely to attract people who weren’t already inclined to cycle here before the protection was added.

The reaction to this scheme (and the others across the major towns and cities of West Sussex) was predictably vitriolic and the County Council, whose commitment to active travel is as shallow as a film of diesel on a puddle, rapidly announced they were removing every single one of them – spitefully, even the one…

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COVID-19 – RESPONDING TO AN EMERGENCY

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Last January, the WHO declared the Covid-19 outbreak as a global health emergency. When it spread to western Europe in February and March, most governments imposed lockdowns, and encouraged people to avoid crowds and observe social distancing. They also encouraged people to walk or cycle where feasible and provided funding to improve facilities for active travel.

By the end of March, the Dutch engineering consultancy Mobycon, had produced guidance  Making Safe Space for Cycling in 10 Days: A Guide to Temporary Bike Lanes from Berlin. The title came from the time required for a German local authority to provide temporary bike lanes.

During the summer, the Irish government through the National Transport Authority provided funding to improve facilities for walking and cycling and invited applications for suitable schemes. Kildare County Council were awarded funding for a number of schemes for Maynooth and other Kildare towns which included temporary cycle lanes. The funding was conditional on the work being carried out by the end of November. (In reality, councils knew that they have until the end of January to complete them.) However, in the four months since July, no Covid works have taken place in the town. In contrast, Dublin City Council publishes progress reports on Covid-19 schemes on a monthly basis.

One would hope that in the case of an invasion, that the army in Kildare will react faster to an emergency than the council.

Cycling Officers: What is their Background and What Should they Do?

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At the recent meeting of Cyclist.ie to develop future strategy, there was discussion on the role of Cycling Officers in local authorities. Some of the comments showed a lack of awareness of Cyclist.ie’s position on the matter so this article was designed to clarify the subject. Cycle campaigners agree that there should be Cycling Officers in all local authorities but what should their background be and what should they do?

Cycling Officers were explicitly mentioned in the 2009 National Cycle Policy Framework where their sole task was defined as setting up a Cycle Forum but, since then, most local authorities have ignored the Department of Transport calls to appoint one. Where they have been appointed, some have an administrative background while others have a technical background and the underlying grade of appointed Officers includes Senior Executive Engineer, Administrative Officer and  Road Safety Officer with some working in “Sports Partnership” rather than “Transport”. In Kildare, the post of Cycling Officer was incorporated with the Road Safety Officer and the necessary qualifications uniquely included needing a driving licence but did not include being able to cycle.

In the past, the policy of Cyclist.ie was that the Cycling Officer should be appointed at an appropriate grade without specifying what that grade should be. At the October 2019 Council meeting of Cyclist.ie, a motion was passed that the Cycling Officer should be at Director of Services level and that the role of the Cycling Officer should be:

(1) to achieve an increased level of cycling and

(2) report progress or lack of it on an annual basis.

In large part, this was because in local authorities no-one is responsible for increasing the level of cycling. It also avoids the question of whether the required skillset should be technical or administrative. What is more important is the enthusiasm of the person for the job!

In 2005, following a road traffic crash in County Meath in which five schoolgirls were killed, safety procedures changed radically when Directors of Services in local authorities were given responsibility for new road safety procedures. This was a radical departure and led to an increased emphasis on health and safety in the upper levels of local authority senior management. In (most) local authorities, an equivalent radical departure is required in relation to cycling. Cycling Officers at Director of Services level with responsibility for increasing the level of cycling would be one step in ensuring that high quality is an integral part of new cycling infrastructure as low quality will not attract a high number of users.

Since the passing of the motion by Council, the Cyclist executive has raised the issue in its Pre-Budget submission to government but the Department of Transport has given no indication that it accepts Cyclist.ie’s position. Under it does, efforts to improve quality of cycling infrastructure will be handicapped.

So How Much did Shane Ross Really Allocate to Cycling in 2019?

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In 2019, with the assistance of parliamentary questions by TDs of all parties as well as independents, Cyclist.ie estimated that the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport (DTTAS) spent 1.4% of its capital budget on cycling in 2018. This article carries the results of a similar exercise for 2019 funding. Again it focuses on the DTTAS and ignores the funding of cycling by other government departments such as the Departments of Health or Education.

DTTAS funding for cycling is generally provided under the  heading of Land Transport but additional funding for cycling (greenways) was also provided under the heading of Tourism.

The principal source of data for Land Transport funding was the National Transport Authority (NTA) 2019 Annual Report Sustainable Transport Measures Grant.  The NTA lists all scheme according to the implementing local authority or other recipient. Some of their schemes are cycle only, while others are for more than one mode of transport. The proportion allocated to cycling was estimated on the basis set out in the following table:

The main categories of multi-mode projects were  – greenways, shared paths, shared space and BusConnects. Greenways and shared paths were divided on the basis of 50:50 expenditure while shared space was divided on the basis of 331/3  : 331/3  : 331/3 .  BusConnects was more problematic as its proportion of cycling can vary significantly. However, it was decided to proportion 10% of funding for cycling for a number of reasons. In particular, the primary objective was the need to reorganise the bus service but It was considered reasonable that a proportion should be allocated to cycling as the project includes segregated cycle facilities. It was decided to proportion 10% for cycling as that was the 2009 government target for cycling. There are grounds for arguing that 10% is too high and other arguments that 10% is too low but as BusConnects is a new project, it was decided that 10% was reasonable until its outcome in terms of provision of quality cycling infrastructure is clearer.

The NTA reported that in 2019 total expenditure on sustainable transport schemes was €39.6 million. Each NTA scheme was considered in turn and the appropriate percentage was applied in accordance with the type of scheme. In this way, NTA expenditure on cycling was estimated at  €17.9 million or 45% of NTA STMG grants. Tourism allocated €9.8 million to greenways, of which €4.9 million was deemed to be for cycling. Other cycling related spending by the DTTAS and NTA at €1 million included Cycle Right and Bikeweek, and was assumed to be 100% cycling related. Green Schools spending, with a budget of €2 million, was assumed to be 331/3% cycling related. Combining Land Transport and Tourism funding, total DTTAS expenditure on cycling in 2019 was estimated at €24.48 million.

The total Land Transport capital expenditure for 2019 was €1493 million. In calculating the appropriate amount, this figure was increased to take into account the Tourism expenditure on greenways so the overall total figure for expenditure by the DTTAS was €1,503 million. On this basis, the estimated proportion of DTTAS expenditure on cycling increased in 2019 from approximately 1.3% to 1.6% – a modest increase, which with ex-Minister Ross’s record, should surprise no-one.

APPENDIX 1       ESTIMATE OF CYCLING RELATED NTA GRANT       

RefGrant RecipientNTA GrantCycling Related NTA Grant % Cycling related/NTA Grant
CCC/Cork City Council€6,808,976€3,048,41944.8%
CCO/Cork County Council€1,327,678€138,10410.4%
DDCTotal€15,956,908€7,929,68249.7%
DCUDCU Cycle Parking€62,104€62,1041
DLRCCDun Laoghaire Rathdown€1,413,278€956,87467.7%
FCCFingal County Council€2,292,155€1,143,94449.9%
GCCGalway County Council€620,140€280,75745.3%
KCCKildare County Council€728,138€380,13652.2%
LCCCLimerick City & County Council€3,327,944€1,290,21738.8%
MCCMeath Coiunty Council€2,650,571€245,3239.3%
NTA Regional Bikes Capital CostsCapital Costs€309,854€309,854
SDCCSouth Dublin County Council€1,758,660€1,174,07766.8%
An TaisceGreenschools Cycle & scooter parking€124,617€62,30950.0%
UCDPed Cycle facility€119,884€59,94250.0%
WCCWicklow County Council€399,077€138,97434.8%
WDCCWaterford City and County Council€1,722,907€701,06840.7%
Grand Total€39,622,891€17,921,78245.2%
A breakdown of expenditure within local authorities is available here.

APPENDIX 2 SUMMARY OF DTTAS EXPENDITURE ON CYCLING

 Year20182019
Gross Voted Capital* €000s  
DTTAS – Dept Total Gross Voted Capital €2,005,308€2,343,869
DTTAS –  Land Transport Total Gross Voted Expenditure€1,660,507€1,934,981
DTTAS – Total Land Transport Gross Voted Capital€1,242,591€1,493,523
DTTAS – Tourism Greenways Gross Voted Capital€3,255,000€9,798,000
DTTAS – Total Land Transport+Greenways Gross Voted Capital€1,245,846€1,503,321
* Source Databank  
   
NTA Expenditure on Cycling   
NTA Annual Expenditure STMG€34,700€39,622
% Cycling 45.2%
NTA Cycling Expenditure €17,921
Walk/Cycle€21,600(€26,850)
Bus€4,100(€2,600)
Traffic Management€6,900(€7,480)
Alternative Estimate of NTA Expenditure on Cycling* €13,205 
 *Note – NTA expenditure on cycling was calculated differently in 2018 and 2019.  
   
Other DTTAS/NTA Expenditure  
Cycle Right/Bikeweek€1,000€1,000
Green Schools€2,000€2,000
Greenways€3,255€9,798
Other DTTAS/NTA Expenditure€3,288€6,559
   
   
Total DTTAS Expenditure on Cycling€16,492€24,480
% Total DTTAS Expenditure on Cycling*1.3%1.6%
Note there is a discrepancy in the 2018 estimates of percentage expenditure on cycling between 1.4% at the start of the article and 1.3% at the end. This is due to slight differences in the method of calculation.

Kildare Town – Council Fails to Provide for Cycling

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Kildare County Council recently carried out Covid-19 works in Kildare Town. Part of the works included the reallocation of space in the town square from car parking to tables and benches for people to sit and relax. The change in the environment from a place dominated by cars to a place for people to linger is striking and has deservedly been warmly welcomed.

However, the same cannot be said of the second works in the town on Cleamore Road (Academy Street). Cleamore Road is approximately 250m long and contains a school, community building, shops, factory unit and private houses. Its cross section varies from 7.5m at the lower section, 8-9m in the middle section and increases to 15m at the upper end. Traffic has been restricted to one direction and footpaths have been widened to give more room for social distancing.  The photographs below show the result of the works.

Cyclists from the north west of the town have to take a circuitous diversionary route via Grey Abbey Road to access the school as no contraflow cycle track has been provided. Rather than providing a School Street or School Zone to enable children to safely cycle to school, the work is more likely to encourage cycling on the footpath than to encourage more cyclists.

The works have been heavily criticised by cycle campaigners for its failure to properly provide for cycling. Covid funding was intended to provide for increased walking and cycling, not walking OR cycling. Over 1000 children attend the adjacent St Brigid’s School but according to the 2016 Census, only 7 children cycled to primary school. As can be seen from the photograph, cyclists are expected to share the road with cars.  Few parents allow young children to share the roads with cars anywhere, so why does the Council expect them to do so in Kildare Town?

Kildare County Council made a short video of the works which can be seen here. A council engineer describes how the works allowed the footpath on one side  to be widened a minimum of 3m and on the other side to nearly as much. While this is true of the lower section, it is patently untrue in relation to the middle section. As can be seen from the photograph, there is room for parking on both sides of the road and a footpath on just one side ( and also hatching for vehicles) but there is no room for a dedicated cycle path. To crown matters, parking on the west side is perpendicular to the road – just what is needed for reversing cars to deter any cyclists with doubts about cycling safety. Further along the road, there are road markings which indicate “Private Parking” in front of the factory unit so the Council acquiesces in the decision to allocate public space to parking for a private company. The Design Manual for Urban Roads and Streets sets out a road user hierarchy with pedestrians at the top, followed by cyclists and with drivers of private cars at the bottom. The design for Cleamore Road ignores this but councils get away with such decisions as they are judge and jury on the matter.

In Ireland, cycling has flatlined nationally for the last twenty years. Unless Kildare County Council starts to provide high quality cycle infrastructure,  it won’t change in Kildare for the next twenty. In the July Stimulus,  Kildare only received half the allocation of similar commuting counties such as Meath and Wicklow. If the council continues to ignore the needs of cyclists with designs such as Cleamore Street and even worse recent examples in other Municipal Districts, Kildare will be lucky to get half in the future.